


Water Filtration Systems

by morvish



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Bickering, Found Family, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-29
Updated: 2016-06-29
Packaged: 2018-07-19 01:15:41
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,202
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7338652
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/morvish/pseuds/morvish
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They took the bait. They always take the bait.</p><p>Lance, Pidge, Keith, and their pointless arguments.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Water Filtration Systems

“Uh,” came the voice from the doorway. It was a somewhat muffled “uh,” as though its speaker was stowing at least four marshmallows in their mouth. It was also a fairly aggressive “uh,” as though along with the marshmallows, the speaker was stowing some controversial opinion, ready to spew upon fully entering the room.

Lance drifted into Hunk’s view. Hunk nodded sagely to himself and waited.

“Um,” Lance repeated the noise, swallowing what looked like had been an entire loaf of the weird alien bread from the last market haven they’d stopped at. “I don’t want to alarm you all, but Keith’s drinking pee.”

Keith shot away from the glass of water he had been holding, jumping back on the sofa. It clattered noisily on the coffee table he’d been leaning over, but stayed upright, though a little of the water had splashed over the sides.

Pidge looked up, her face flickered with exasperated annoyance for a moment, then she turned away and back to the monitor she was working away at. Hunk stayed quiet, the sock he’d been darning resting on his stomach, fingers interlaced; it was a warm, sleepy afternoon and he didn’t have the energy to question Lance when he knew it was inevitable someone else would.

Lance himself slurped at a carton of alien juice in his other hand.

“That’s pee,” he repeated, pointing at the glass of water.

Keith’s face was a picture of horror with a hint of annoyance.

“What?” he spluttered. “Lance, what did you do to my drink?”

Lance gave a smug and satisfied smile at Keith taking the bait.

“Nothing,” he said. “I haven’t touched it.”

Pidge rolled her eyes, and looked at Hunk, who shrugged back. It was usually best to just leave Keith and Lance to argue by themselves.

“Then what are you talking about?” Keith asked, suspicious and still very annoyed, though manoeuvring himself back to the edge of the sofa. He picked up his glass, examining it carefully.

“I figured it out this morning,” said Lance, plopping himself into the armchair opposite Keith, next to Pidge, who – to her credit – only looked mildly irked by his presence.

“Figured what out, Lance?” she said, finally unable to stop herself from joining in. Hunk picked up his sock, and began darning again, knowing that peaceful sleepy quiet that had settled nicely on the room only a few moments before had been destroyed – possibly for good.

“Well,” announced Lance. “It was when I was in the shower, and I thought to myself – I wonder where this water comes from? And then it hit me.”

He looked around, waiting for someone to ask what hit him. Pidge raised an eyebrow and Keith looked at him intensely from behind the glass of water that he still hadn’t taken a drink from since Lance’s entrance. Hunk remained silent, quietly enjoying Lance’s boisterousness.

“Where does our _drinking_ water come from?” He opened his arms, mouth set in a smug thin line, as though he was expecting gasps of awe and admiration.

“Hold on,” said Pidge instead. “How does that follow on? You’ve left out some key intermediate steps.”

“It – because, it’s the water.”

“Yes, but what’s the point in asking where the drinking water is from if you don’t answer your initial question?” Pidge pointed a finger at nowhere in particular. “Just seems like you’re being alarmist purely for the sake of it.”

Keith slowly slumped back on his side of the sofa, glass of water still in his grip. He gave it a testing sniff, and brought it to his lips very carefully.

“I just thought it was the more important question.”

“Because you’re a scaremonger?” Pidge grinned at Lance who sputtered.

Keith smirked back and took a sip of the water.

“It’s pee though!” Lance cried. He looked to Hunk for support, but Hunk was more nonplussed than ever before.

Keith spat the water out.

“Stop saying that, Lance!” he cried.

“No, listen, before I was _rudely_ interrupted-” Pidge scoffed “-I was going to tell you that I realised all our drinking water is recycled from the atmosphere. But – it’s the atmosphere _in_ Castle.”

“Lance, we don’t have pee in our atmosphere,” Pidge said calmly, without even looking at Lance, while Keith made outraged noises which sounded as though they were trying to get across the same message but with less clarity. Hunk snorted over his sock.

“No, OK, not just the atmosphere,” Lance countered. “But everywhere – all the liquids. It only makes sense. How else are we going to get water?”

“We-” but Pidge stopped. “We…”

“You see! Keith just drank pee!”

Keith threw a cushion at him, and Lance laughed. But Keith was staring down at his glass again; there was a sad crinkle between his eyebrows.

Pidge sighed and clicked her tongue, then went back to tinkering with her monitor. “Just because pee is _used_ doesn’t mean that what Keith is drinking is pee,” she said.

Lance narrowed his eyes. Hunk sucked in a breath.

“Yeah, but it _was_ pee,” Lance said.

“Stop saying that! Stop talking about pee!” Keith pressed the glass back down to the coffee table with a dull thud. “Why do you have to be so obnoxious all the time?”

Lance just smiled.

Pidge sighed again – this time with even more exasperation.

“We don’t know it was – the water will be recycled from all over Castle. It will be filtered from a mixture of different sources,” she was forcibly breaking a button off the side of the monitor. “And by the time it got into Keith’s glass, it’ll be all H₂O, so it doesn’t even matter!” The button came off with a loud crack.

Lance huffed. “But, what if not all of it … what if the filter didn’t work completely? What if there’s bits in it that aren’t H₃O.”

“H₂O. And that’s not how filters work.”

There was a small clattering noises and Hunk, along with everyone else, looked over to see Keith grab his glass and down the entire thing, glaring at Lance throughout it all.

Lance gulped.

“Delicious,” remarked Keith, though a little out of breath and with a small hiccough.

Pidge snorted, and returned to her monitor once again. Though her smile lingered and Hunk knew he had a similar look of soft fondness on his face.

Lance looked horrified.

“What? Scared of a little pee?” asked Keith, smirking.

“Pfft. I don’t lose pride over anything, let alone drinking pee; I’m not fussy like you, Keith.”

“That explains your fashion sense.”

Lance spluttered. “Wh- That’s not even- Coming from you?!”

Keith smirked happily, but there was something gentle in it too. Lance brought his knees up to his chest, resting his feet against the coffee table, and crossed his arms. He was even pouting.

“Good one, Lance,” said Keith.

Lance huffed, though it was almost a chuckle.

Hunk turned back to his sock. Pidge had gotten up to open a window, while Keith and Lance were busy bickering quietly and playing an aggressive game of footsie over the coffee table.

“So – where _does_ the water for the shower come from?” asked Hunk.

There was a communal groan.

“Heh,” said Hunk happily.

**Author's Note:**

> i had a lot of thoughts about the different ways lance, pidge and keith argue and why they do it the other day and i didn't really get them across in this exactly, but hey-ho can't have it all.
> 
> also, i have no idea / can't remember if castle has windows, but it seems fun enough that it might have openable windows. there's too much hot air in paladins to not have windows.


End file.
